MARK MY WORD: TIME'S RELATIVE DURING THE MORNING RUSH

The sun's rosy glow spreads across the dining room. The children sit quietly at the breakfast table eating their cereal and bananas as the parents relax with the morning newspaper.

Hold on. This isn't real life. This is pure fiction.

Mornings are hurry-up disasters as Joni and I rush to get the kids dressed, fed and to the day care and babysitter, and still get to work by 9 a.m.

One-year-old Bailey has no trouble waking up, but 5-year-old Becca could sleep until noon if given the chance. She isn't a morning person.

Joni usually gets the kids up and dressed in the same amount of time it takes me to shower and shave.

By now, an hour has passed. It's getting late. Joni has five minutes to get dressed for work.

I usually have the chore of finding everyone's shoes, including Joni's. At times, I find them behind the bathroom door. Frequently, they congregate around the legs of our dining room table. Who knows? Maybe the footwear's hungry.

Finding socks can be a daunting task. The other day I was rummaging through Bailey's dresser, searching desperately for a pair of socks. I found plenty of socks, but none of them matched. Finally, I discovered a pair of white socks lounging behind the bedroom door.

I think socks should come with attached beepers. That way maybe I could find the stray ones.

Once dressed, we rush downstairs. I pour milk into the baby bottles while Joni sees to it that Becca has her backpack and there are diapers in Bailey's diaper bag. The kids usually take their breakfast in baggies.

Then, we race to our cars for the mad dash down the driveway. Joni usually takes Becca to day care, while I haul Bailey to the babysitter.

With any luck, both Joni and I will end up at work by mid-morning. And that's only if everything goes right.

On Fridays, Joni goes into work early so I have to get both kids up, dressed and transported to day care and the babysitter.

By the time I have found them something appropriate to wear that doesn't make them look like hockey players, I have consumed precious time.

Friday is show-and-tell day at Becca's day care. Becca often waits until the last minute to decide what toy or doll to take to class. On top of that, I'm always chasing down the kids' coats, which seem to end up in the most obscure corners of our house. Becca's coat often hangs out on her "My Size" Barbie.

All this running around makes it tough to get to work on time. If work were high school, I'd regularly be in the principal's office for being late.

Fortunately, parent magazines know moms and dads have morning management problems. One of those magazines offers time-management tips.

The top tip: Do everything you can the night before.

Translation: Spend the entire night looking for those socks and shoes.

Assuming you find them before your children go to bed, you might want to glue them to their feet. Actually, it probably wouldn't hurt to glue on their clothes before they go to bed. That way, they'll be dressed and ready to go in the morning.

The management advice includes this one: Keep your eyes on the clock.

That doesn't make sense to me. If I spend all my time looking at the clock, I'll never find those socks.

I think the best solution is to put Cape Girardeau on California time. That way, Joni and I could get to work on time. Of course, that would make us late picking up our children, but no management plan is perfect.

And if all else fails, you can throw away your clocks so you don't have a clue that you're late. Then, maybe you can have a stress-free morning, at least until the kids wake up.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.